"Faith and the Heavenly City, Part 1: Faith and the Unseen"

Hebrews 11:1-7

Introduction: What Is Faith?

Children,

do you ever wish that you could see Jesus?

Wouldn't it be nice if you could just look up into the sky and see Jesus there,

sitting on the throne at the right hand of God the Father?

Hebrews 2:8-9 says

"At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to Jesus.

But we see . . . Jesus . . ."

Do you see Jesus?

Hebrews says that we see Jesus!

How?

With your eyes?

No.

By faith.

Faith is the eye of the soul.

Faith enables us to see the invisible.

As I stood at my mother's side,

with the grey cloud of death spreading over her face,

it was easy to shrink back in horror.

In fact, the first sight of that face caused me to fall to my knees,

gather my children around me

and warn them of what they were about to see with their eyes;

and encourage them to see with more than their eyes:

to see by faith that God had not forsaken Grandmama's body-

to see by faith that her body, being still united to Christ,

will but rest in the grave until the resurrection.

"We see . . . Jesus."

That's what Hebrews 11 is all about.

We've seen that the two exhortations of Hebrews 6 and Hebrews 10

provide the bookends for the central exposition of Hebrews 7-10.

In the opening exhortation of 6:12,

Hebrews told us to "imitate those who with faith and patience inherit the promises."

Likewise in the closing exhortation of 10:39,

he said, "we are not of those who shrink back and are destroyed,

but of those who have faith and preserve their souls."

The contrast is between "shrinking back" and "having faith"

Faith, then, is the key-

But what is faith?

Faith is not just bare belief.

Notice that in both passages faith is connected with patience, endurance, perseverance.

True saving faith is a faith that endures until the end.

Why?

Because saving faith is all about the end!

From time to time I use the word "eschatological" to describe the church and our salvation.

Why?

Because "eschatology" means the "last things."

And Jesus has come in "these last days" (Heb 1:2),

and everything that Jesus has done is connected to the coming of the last days.

We are the "last-days" people of God.

Our faith is that everything that God promised to do for Israel at the end of history,

God has done for Jesus in the middle of history.

What was the focus of all these heroes of the faith in Hebrews 11?

They were looking forward-

they were looking to the day when God would establish his heavenly city.

And that is what God has done in Jesus.

In other words, the end of history has come in Jesus.

The final judgment has happened to Jesus.

He has been vindicated and exalted to the right hand of God,

and so therefore, all who are in Christ participate in his "eschatological" glory.

All that belongs to Christ is yours.

You have been justified by his righteousness.

You have been consecrated or sanctified by his holiness.

The difference is that he has received these things bodily.

When you look at Jesus you see the resurrected, glorified, Son of Man.

We have received these things by faith-not yet by sight.

But it is by faith that we see the end of history

even while we still live in the middle of history.

And that is why saving faith is by definition a persevering faith-

a faith that endures until the end,

because it finds its anchor in the eschatological work of Jesus.

1. Faith and the Unseen (11:1-7)

Hebrews 11 begins:

"Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

Assurance is not a very good translation.

Assurance is too subjective.

The word here is "hypostasis"-

which denoted "tangible reality" as opposed to mere appearance.

We've seen this word twice before in Hebrews:

in 1:3, where the Son is said to be "the stamp of his substance"

and in 3:14, where we are told that we share in Christ,

"if we hold fast the "beginning of the substance" until the end."

In other words,

in all three places in Hebrews, this word has to do with the objective reality of something.

So faith is not merely the "assurance" of things hoped for,

it is not a mere subjective quality.

Faith is where we grasp the objective reality of what Christ has done.

Like in Paul, faith is contrasted with sight.

We walk by faith, not by sight-

but faith enables us to "see" as it were the objective reality

of what God has done in Christ.

The task of faith is to make an unseen reality as real-indeed, more real-

than that which is seen with the eye.

So the old word "substance" actually works rather well:

"Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the demonstration of things not seen."

2. Faith and the Beginning (11:1-3)

And then Hebrews launches into its famous "hall of faith."

But before launching into the heroes of the faith,

Hebrews starts with us-by faith, WE understand-

because he wants you to see that we are bound up with all the saints of ages past.

By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God,

so that what is seen was not out of things that are visible.

In other words, even though we frequently judge by our eyes,

we need to remember that what is unseen came first.

Through the visible, we perceive the invisible hand of God.

The testimony of your senses is not the standard for truth.

Everything you see,

everything you touch,

everything you smell,

was formed from that which is unseen.

The invisible was before all things-

and so the testimony of your senses begins with faith.

"By faith"

Virtually every sentence starts with these words.

None of these heroes of the faith could see what was promised.

What is common to all of these "attested witnesses" of Hebrews 11

is that they all had a hope that was based on something they could not see.

Are you relying too much on your eyes?

Do you order your life based on what you can see?

Faith is the demonstration (or conviction) of things not seen.

And when you face trial and temptation,

when God sends unexpected challenges into your life,

do you see Jesus--

the one who came through suffering to glory?

Or do you only see the evidence of your senses?

3. Faith and Drawing Near (11:4-7)

But how do you see Jesus by faith?

The theme of verses 4-7 is "drawing near."

By faith, Abel drew near through his acceptable sacrifice--

and he was commended by God as righteous.

By faith Enoch drew near, as God took him up to himself-

and he was commended as having pleased God.

The contrast is interesting.

Abel is commended for his faith through dying as a martyr,

while Enoch is commended for his faith so that he should not see death.

We are thus called to have faith both in life and in death.

Whether you are called to die for your faith,

or whether you are one who is taken in the clouds when Christ returns,

you are called to draw near to God by faith.

By faith Noah drew near, building the ark-

and thus he became an heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

Could Noah see what was going to happen?

No.

Hebrews makes a point of saying that these events were "yet unseen."

God warned that he would destroy humanity with a flood.

And he called Noah to build an ark.

Through this one building, God would save a remnant of humanity,

but destroy the wicked in the waters of judgment.

Noah had to make a decision:

would he believe God?

Or would he believe his own eyes?

Notice how Hebrews puts it:

"In reverent fear constructed an ark for the saving of his household."

God saved Noah's household through this building.

It is not by accident that many of the early fathers spoke of the church

as Christ's "ark."

Peter, after all, speaks of the church as a spiritual house-

the spiritual building through which God saves his people.

And just as Noah built an ark for the saving of his household,

so Jesus is building his church for the saving of his household.

But Hebrews point is not to draw our attention to the ark-

but to the faith that produced the ark.

Verse 6 tells us the point of this paragraph:

"Without faith it is impossible to please him,

for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists

and that he rewards those who seek him"

Do you want to please God?

Then do not focus on "doing your duty!"

You will never please God by striving to do your duty,

because you will never be good enough!

What pleases God?

Faith.

What gives God delight?

When you seek him!

When you draw near to him!

Remember 10:22 "let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith"

The life that pleases God begins with believing that God exists-and not just that he exists,

but also that he rewards those who seek him:

as Jesus put it, "seek and you shall find"

"Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness"

and then the affairs of this life will be ordered properly.

Dearly beloved,

you must believe that God rewards those who seek him.

(And certainly no one ever seeks God without God first drawing him,

but that only means that you can be all the more certain

that God rewards those who seek him,

because your seeking is prompted by his calling!)

Psalm 105:3-4 tell us "Let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice!

Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually"

Let us never grow weary of seeking the LORD!

He is our hope and our shield.

Conclusion: Faith and the Heavenly City (11:8-22)

Part two of Hebrews 11 focuses on Abraham.

Like verses 1-8 we have two sets of examples surrounding a central exhortation.

Verses 13-16 are at the heart of his treatment of Abraham.

All of 8-12 and 17-22 should be understood in light of Hebrews claim

that Abraham was looking for a heavenly city.

We will look more in detail next week at Abraham,

but the summary of verses 13-16 is crucial for understanding the whole of Heb 11.

(Read verses 13-16)

Seeking God-drawing near to him-seeing by faith that which is unseen-

all of this finds its focus in the heavenly city.

Do you see yourself as a stranger and exile on the earth?

Are you seeking a homeland?

Or is the United States your home?

Some long for the "good old days"!

-the fifties!

By that some mean the 1950s

others mean the 1850s (the Confederacy)

and still others mean the 1750s (Jonathan Edwards)

and still others the 1650s (the Puritans)

and still others the 1550s (Calvin's Geneva).

Such people are looking the wrong direction.

It is not even right to look back to the original 50s,

longing for some sort of primitive apostolic purity.

A close read of 1 Corinthians should cure you of any illusions

that the apostolic church would be a fun place to live!

Looking to Jesus does not mean going back.

Looking to Jesus means looking forward.

We see Jesus crowned with glory and honor

because he endured the last days wrath of God,

so that he might enter the last days glory of the heavenly city.

He is our homeland and our inheritance.

This is the point of the church's existence.

We worship week by week and fellowship day by day

in order to remind each other of that faith, hope and love

that is the root and foundation of the Christian life.

Almighty God, give us eyes to see Jesus, ears to hear what he is saying, and hearts that love you and love to walk in your ways. Grant us faith that we might behold your glory in the face of Jesus Christ, that we might look to him, the author and finisher of our faith. And may we endure faithfully until the end, steadfast and unmoved from the hope of the gospel, for Jesus' sake. Amen.